Asylum Dev Diary 54 – Bugs

It always surprises me when you go back to check something you did a long time ago only to find it no longer works.

This weekend I wanted to get a few processes sorted. The first, and most important, the ability to save at the reception floor and reload successfully. This is because up until now the save process was designed specifically for the first floor and would need a few extra bits and pieces to get the game to load and restore from a different level. This was quite straightforward and works nicely.

I then thought it would be a good time to look into the first game-over state which is back on the first floor if the player fails to find water in time. What was very weird is that when I went to test this I discovered that the noise shader was no longer working. I found out the reason for it; the anxiety process was resetting the noise strength. I fixed that only to discover that something was now turning the entire screen red and setting the anxiety to max.

Long story short it turned out to be a very badly placed anxiety incrementer in my oMajorAnxiety object. Instead of the increase applying when the player is colliding with the trigger object it was applying it during the Step phase which occurs every frame of the game. What really confuses me is why this has occurred now and not before. The oMajorAnxiety object has been in the game for quite some time now and it hasn’t affected it before.

These things are sent to try us.

So, next week I can move on from these bits and get back to the police chase!